


Four Times Alec Went To Highcombe, And One Time He Didn't

by PsychGirl (snycock)



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:27:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snycock/pseuds/PsychGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cottage at Highcombe has witnessed many scenes from Alec's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Times Alec Went To Highcombe, And One Time He Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> All places and denizens of the Swordspoint universe belong to Ellen Kushner. I'm not making any money off this, just wanting to show appreciation and love.
> 
> Many thanks to the terrific just_ann_now for the speedy and thorough beta. All mistakes herein are my own.
> 
> Time period ranges from pre-Swordspoint to just before The Death of The Duke.

I.

“Davey?”

She tiptoed into the great hall, her whisper echoing back at her from the cavernous ceiling. The servants were bustling about, cleaning silver and shaking out linens, trying not to be obvious as they watched her from underneath lowered lids.

A sliver of flickering light drew her eye, between the fireplace and the wall.

Deftly she pushed the door open and slipped through into the dark, chilled cottage beyond. A lone candle guttered on the hearth and she dropped the basket she was carrying next to it as she knelt by the sobbing boy. “Oh, Davey,” she breathed.

“J-Janine?” he whimpered, raising his head to look at her, green eyes shining with tears.

She gathered him into her arms, careful to avoid touching the ugly red welts she could see peeking through the tatters of his shirt. “Shh, it’s alright,” she murmured, “It’s alright, I’m here.” He clutched at her skirts and buried his face in her lap and wept as she stroked his soft brown hair.

When his sobs had subsided, she gently tugged the ruined shirt off and smoothed the ointment she had brought over the marks on his back.

He turned his head to face her, still resting on her lap, eyes half-closed with exhaustion and the relief of pain. “Thank you,” he said softly.

 _Why do you bait her so?_ she wanted to say. _When you know what will happen?_ “Someday we’ll go far away from here,” she said instead, running her fingers through his hair again, “just you and I. To a different country, fantastic and wonderful, where it’s summer all the time and there are plums and strawberries and rocks made of honey and jam and rivers of chocolate that flow to the chocolate sea. And we’ll live there happily ever after, together.”

His eyes were fully closed now, lashes dark against his pale, tear-stained face, but his mouth had curved in a smile. “How will we get there?” he asked dreamily.

“We’ll ride our magic horses, of course, silly,” she said. “I will ride Flame of the Sea, and you… who will you ride?”

“Storm Cloud,” he mumbled, his tongue thick with sleep. “When will they come, Janine?”

Sorrow gripped her heart like a falcon with its prey. He was growing up so fast, which meant she was growing up faster. “Soon, my dear, soon.”

II.

“I say, Campion, can you hurry up? It’s cold out here.”

The mechanism was rusty with disuse, but Alec gave the key a vicious twist, and heard the satisfying snap of the bolt drawing back. He opened the door and went in, his companions spilling into the room after him.

“Beasley, Stone, Timmens – you three get the fire going,” he ordered. “Griffin, come with me, we’ll see if there’s anything to eat.”

When they returned, arms heaped with provisions, the room was warming nicely, and the others had moved the table close to the fire, arranging the benches around it in a rough semi-circle. He dumped the supplies on the table and reached to open a bottle of wine.

Silence reigned while the five of them took the immediate edge off their hunger. “Campion,” Timmens, the youngest, said finally, helping himself to a second portion of smoked fish, “when you said you knew a place to spend the White Days, you didn’t mention that it would be in such splendor.”

Alec waved a hand airily, his mouth full of preserved cherries. He felt warm and content; stomach full, pleasantly tipsy, and surrounded by his friends, his fellow explorers into the world of academic mysteries.

“Yes, how _did_ you know about it?” Griffin asked.

The spike of adrenaline made his throat go dry, but it also helped to clear the wine-induced mist from his brain. He swallowed and thought quickly. “My… mother did some sewing for the Lady Janine, now and then. This is where she would stay. She often brought my sister and me with her.” He gulped some wine to push away the ache in his heart that rose from saying his sister’s name. _It doesn’t matter_ , he told himself fiercely. _That’s all over now. You’re not a part of that – of them – anymore_.

He became aware of four pairs of eyes gazing at him in startled concern. “Don’t worry, it’s fine,” he assured them. “Lady Janine always told me I could come here whenever I want. I’ve got a key, haven’t I?”

Their relief was visible, spreading through them like sunlight. He wasn’t sure which was more intoxicating, their trust or his wine. “Open another bottle,” he said, motioning to Griffin. “It’s Last Night, after all.”

“Speaking of….” Stone, a smile dancing over his narrow face, pulled a vial from his robes and held it tantalizingly between his fingers. “A little something special for the New Year?”

He’d thought that wine was good, but this, this was so much better. He danced under the cold, brilliant stars, arms around his companions, his new brothers, filled with a blazing, inchoate joy. They collapsed to the ground, laughing, and the snow was soft and white like down under his hands. The stars wheeled above, twinkling like ice, and he watched them move – or was it he who was moving?

When he voiced his question aloud there was a moment of silence, than four voices talking at once, exclaiming, questioning, agreeing. He sat up; Beasley was fumbling in his robes for the parchment and pen he always carried. But there was no ink. Disappointment swept through them like wind, and he could feel the ideas and their peculiar energy ebbing away. He grabbed Beasley’s pen and stabbed the nib into his bared arm, watched the blood bubble up like laughter. “Here,” he said, head swimming with ecstasy. “The mysteries of the universe should be recorded in nothing less.”

III.

Richard turned slowly on his heel, taking in the gilded opulence of the cavernous foyer. “I can’t believe you grew up here,” he said.

“Yes, well,” Alec tugged his gloves off irritably, “perhaps later I’ll show you the storage cell I got locked into, or the post where I was whipped.”

“You’re the one who wanted to come,” Richard retorted mildly. The days where Alec’s mood could make him nervous were long gone.

“It is a tradition for the new Duke or Duchess to tour his or her lands upon receiving the title,” Alec informed him archly. He was dressed in black, as he had been ever since his grandmother’s death, with a foam of white lace at his wrists and the Tremontaine ruby on his hand.

He was growing his hair out again, Richard noted with satisfaction. The chestnut and sable mane fell almost to the small of his back. “And you are such a traditionalist.”

Alec made a face at him, his green eyes dark with amusement. “There _were_ some things I wanted to show you,” he said, opening a door to his left.

Richard followed him into an enormous long gallery, the left wall of which was entirely windows, from floor to ceiling. The fading daylight picked out whorls and curls in the massive carved furniture – a long table, with nearly two dozen chairs; sideboards and armoires; a cluster of heavy, upholstered chairs in a semi-circle around the hearth at the far end. Mirrors lined the other wall; Richard could see his and Alec’s reflections, moving noiselessly from frame to frame, as if in some parallel universe. He drew his sword and dropped into guard, intrigued with the possibilities.

“No,” Alec said sharply, “one of them was not yet another room for you to practice in.” He had crossed to the other end of the hall and was standing next to the hearth.

“As you’re so fond of telling me,” Richard replied, smiling, “I guard Tremontaine now. I must keep my skills up.” But he put up his sword and went to Alec’s side.

“No one here is trying to kill me. Yet.” There was a click, and Alec pushed the hidden door open.

The cottage beyond was as plain as the hall they’d come from was grand. Richard felt immediately at ease. It had a comfortable shabbiness that reminded him of their rooms in Riverside – something that had been scarce in their lives since Alec had taken up his title.

He wandered around, examining the rough table and benches, the steep ladder that led up to the sleeping loft, the large but plain bed under the small round window. Meanwhile Alec had thrown open the main door – in desperate need of a coat of paint – and was telling the servants to bring things in from the carriage. Richard watched them from above as they carted baskets and chests inside and spread the table with fine linen and silver.

“I thought we might spend the night here,” Alec said, a studied casualness in his tone. For a moment there was a look of the ragged and reckless scholar about him, the one Richard had seen in the streets of Riverside so long ago. The one he couldn’t help but be drawn to, like a moth to flame.

This was important – this _place_ was important – and although Richard didn’t completely understand why or how, he was more than willing to indulge Alec’s pleasure. “As you wish, my lord,” he said gravely, taking off his sword belt and hanging it on a small peg next to the bed, then climbing nimbly down the pitched ladder.

Alec sent the servants off to find rooms of their own in the great house. The dusk was deepening, but Alec lit the candles on the table, shod in silver shaped like dragons, and a warm glow filled the room. “I got you a present,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I can. Because you saved my life.”

Richard smiled. “I doubt Godwin would have challenged you directly after the Duchess—”

Alec cut him off. “No. Not that.” He placed an ornate wooden box on the table.

Inside were a pair of wineglasses, the bowl as round and thin as a soap bubble, the stems tinted blue and shaped like dolphins. “Alec, they’re beautiful,” Richard breathed, as he pulled one out of its nest and turned it to and fro, admiring the way the dolphin leapt in the flickering light.

“You should have beautiful things. You appreciate them so. And now I can afford to give them to you.” He reached for one of the bottles on the table. “Here, let’s give them a proper christening.”

They ate their fill by the fire in their shirtsleeves, warm and comfortable and talking of their first days together in Riverside. The fire burned down to embers, and the candles as well, leaving wax all over the fierce silver dragons and the fine tablecloth.

Later, when they had sated other appetites, they lay naked and tangled together in the large bed. Richard listened to the chirr of the night insects and the call of a distant owl, sounds he never heard in the city. “Do you think you could live here?” Alec murmured sleepily, as if waking from some dream.

“Perhaps,” he replied. “But I think I’d paint the door blue.”

IV.

Lucius Perry looked at himself in the mirror and tried to quell his anxiety. He hadn’t been working at Glinley’s very long, but it had been long enough to be able to interpret the looks of jealousy and envy aimed at him after Nan Glinley had come to him in the main hall

“You’ve been requested,” she’d said, a faint line between her brows the only visible sign of her consternation. He’d followed her obediently to a large bedroom, sumptuously hung with tapestries, the bed clothed with silk and velvet. She pointed him towards the dressing table and told him to wait.

The array of paints and powders available on the table was dizzying, but he refrained from testing any, wanting to make sure he made the right choice. He’d never seen Nan this undone, and it told him that this request was something – or from someone – very important. So instead he looked at himself in the mirror and took deep breaths.

The tiny nod she gave him when she returned, arms piled high, told Lucius that his instincts had been right. “You’re to wear this,” she said, dumping a pile of brown fabric on the bed.

Lucius hesitated, feeling unaccountably reluctant to undress in front of her, and she snapped her fingers at him impatiently. “Go on, then,” she said.

The fabric turned out to be a suit, of fine wool, the color of late autumn leaves, which fit him beautifully. He’d almost have thought it was made for him, if he hadn’t’ve detected the faint signs of wear that told him it had had a previous owner.

“You’re not to call him ‘my lord’ but once or twice,” Nan said, fastening a sword belt around his waist. “And you’re not to take this off until he tells you to – I assume you can move around in it?”

“Well enough.” So someone high-born had asked for him. But he wasn’t to know, or at least wasn’t to let on. Was it someone who knew his family? Would the person recognize him? Would they betray his secret?

Nan pushed him down to sit, brushing his hair out and then tying it back with a simple black ribbon. “Speak only when you’re spoken to, and don’t say much – remember, he’s not paying you – us – to be your chatterbox self. He’s paying you to be someone else, to fulfill a fantasy.” She turned him around and looked him in the eye, and now her gaze was as straight and as firm as ever. “They all are. This one’s no different from any of the others. Don’t you let him make you forget that, no matter who he is.”

And then she was gone, leaving Lucius alone in the opulent room, feeling awkward and uncomfortable in his borrowed clothes.

He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. Nan was right. The people who came to Glinley’s paid for their fantasies to be made real. If he wanted to do this, to be successful at this, he had to play the part that came to him, no matter how difficult.

The door opened. And Lucius’ newfound resolve almost deserted him, because framed in the doorway was Lord David Alexander Tielman Campion, the Mad Duke, the Duke of Tremontaine, the Duke of Riverside. He was carrying a basket and his hair was unbound, falling over his shoulders like water. His mouth was curved in a smile, but there was a slow, drugged madness in his eyes.

“Hello,” he said pleasantly, “I’ve brought us some fish.”

V.

“Is this your home, then?” Sofia asked, looking around as she alighted from the carriage. For some reason, they’d stopped in front of a small cottage instead of at the front entrance of the great manor.

Her husband’s laugh was as dry and brittle as autumn leaves. “That, my dear, depends on what you mean by home.”

She waited for him to continue, but he was fussing at the servants who were unstrapping his chair from the top of the carriage. So instead she pushed through the faded blue door and into the cottage.

The main room was clean but bare of decoration, save for a pair of crystal wineglasses that rested on a shelf near the fireplace. A bare pallet was rolled up next to the hearth, and a table with two benches sat in front. She contemplated climbing the ladder to the loft to see what was up there, but the child in her belly, although barely showing yet, sometimes made her clumsy, and the ladder was narrow and rickety.

“Put it there,” she heard the Duke saying, annoyance clear and sharp in his tone. “No, facing the fireplace, you dolt. Do you wish me to freeze to death?”

She turned to see two of the servants carrying him, their hands linked in a sort of chair-like grasp, while the third struggled with the unwieldy reclining chair the Duke had insisted they bring with them.

“Is that wise for a woman in your condition?” the Duke asked, as she went to help the servant unfold the chair and lock its legs and arms in place.

“My condition is nothing for you to be concerned about,” she told him, with a soft smile to take the sting out of her words. “Women on Kyros have been working in the fields while carrying children for as long as memory can say. This is a simple thing in comparison.”

He fell silent then, but his eyes were bright as she helped two of the men get him settled in the chair, with a blanket over his lap and another around his shoulders. The third went outside for a while, and came back with his arms heaped with wood, enough to last them through the night.

She thought it would have been better if they had stayed in the village, but she could see the mulish look on his face and knew that he would not grant her an ear in this matter. Whatever the reason, it was important to him to stay here tonight. So she busied herself unpacking the provisions they had bought in the village earlier.

“Will you take wine, my lord?” she asked, going to the shelf for the wineglasses.

“No!” he said, sharply, then softened his tone. “No. Water, only, for me. And we have cups in the carriage.”

She knew, then, who the beautiful glasses had belonged to, and her heart sank. She thought they had left him behind on Kyros, he who was the first and the best, but instead he was more present than ever.

Dinner was a quiet affair. She pressed him to eat, but he would take only a few sips of broth and a few bites of bread. He held the silver cup of water in his lap and watched the fire with feverish, impatient eyes. If the flames lessened even a small amount he would be at one of the servants to pile on more wood, until the house around them was as warm as new-baked bread.

Her appetite was gone, but she forced herself to eat chicken and greens and a piece of fresh apple, for the sake of the child inside her. Weary from the ship and the long carriage ride, she unrolled the pallet and lay down, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders.

“There’s a bed, upstairs,” he said.

“That ladder is too much for me to climb,” she replied, “and it is warm here by the fire. And I would prefer to stay with you, my lord.” It was one reason she did not like him to sleep in his chair; she could not be next to him then.

He looked as though he would argue with her, but instead he pursed his lips thoughtfully, then called for the servant to poke at the fire.

Despite her exhaustion, though, she slept fitfully. The pallet was comfortable, but the night sounds of this new place were strange. Or maybe it was just that she was so far from her home. She woke several times during the night, and raised her head each time, half afraid to find him dead, only to see him gazing about the cottage, muttering occasionally under his breath.

In the morning she felt stiff and gritty, as if she had been sleeping on a sandy beach. The fire had gone out and there was a chill in the morning air. He still clutched the silver cup in his hands; there was such a lost, forlorn look to him that it made her heart ache.

“He didn’t come,” the Duke complained querulously. “I thought he’d come. He promised me he’d come for me.”

She tried to convince herself that he was talking about someone living, a young cousin or nephew. “Perhaps he’s waiting for you at your house on the Hill.”

“No. He never liked that place; all the masks and the pretension. There’s Riverside… Riverside was his home, but it was always dangerous. This was the place I – he retreated to.”

He looked shrunken and small, despite his height, and the shadow of grief in his eyes was almost too much for her to bear. She had seen that shadow before; she had thought she would never see it again. “We should continue on, my love,” she murmured.

The servants packed everything up, and bundled him into the carriage like an infant. He stayed quiet throughout, with none of his usual grumbling and sarcastic commentary. His gaze seemed unfocused and adrift, and she felt an unaccountable chill grip her heart.


End file.
